Is Leaf and the Maple dead or dying?

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Is Leaf and the Maple dead or dying?

(158 posts) (25 voices)

Started 3 years ago by corguy
Latest reply from raymadigan

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siy
Member

I think that current license is completely acceptable. The github and git are fine too for me.

I propose to split repository into two main parts - hardware and software. The initial software part content is more or less clear. The hardware part probably requires more discussion. I'm ready to contribute my board design suitable for F1/F2/F2 MCUs in 64-pin package (more details on it below), but it is more or less tested only with F1. I have a bunch of F2 and F4 MCUs and can assemble board with one of them and, hopefully, prepare necessary board files for wirish. But since I'm not a hardware engineer (just a hobbyist) I have only general imagination about testing of such a boards for software compatibility. But as software engineer I want to achieve 100% test coverage :) . So any help with this, from advises and suggestions to code examples will be greatly appreciated.

Few words about design:
- Small (52x38.4mm) breadboard compatible board.
- Support for STM32F103/F2xx/F4xx in 64-pin packages.
- 3 separate voltage regulators - two small current LDOs for MCU (separate for analog/digital parts) and one 800ma current LDO for sourcing external load.
- LiPol battery charger
- RTC crystal on board
- CR2032 battery holder for RTC on board
- Automatic power source selection

And it still has single sided layout, although this might change in future, in particular if there will be problems with the ADC noise performance.

I have a couple of STM32F4-Discovery boards, although not tried them yet except playing with some sample code. This might be helpful for testing, I guess. Also, STM32F4-Discovery uses STM32F407VGT MCU. Since this is 100-pin package, I can't solder similar MCU into my board directly. Among MCUs I have handy, probably closest counterpart to 407VGT will be 415RGT. I think that differences between 407 and 415 sub-families are irrelevant at this stage and should not cause any issues with F4 version of libmaple.

Posted 3 years ago #
corguy
Member

@StephenFromNYC: You mis-read my post, I did not buy a Olimex clone, I'm working on my own design VET6 based clone. I am using the Leaf recommended Olimex debugger. Since Leaf used the Olimex debugger for the Maple I assume they have the config file for the Maple. That's all I need. Simple 20 second copy and paste would get things rolling.

See: http://wiki.leaflabs.com/index.php?title=Maple_JTAG_How_To
And: http://leaflabs.com/docs/jtag.html

Part of the synergy from open source is people taking off in new directions like using a VET6 CPU. If Leaf does not like that or does not want that then they should not be open source.

You said: "My assumption and hope is that they are working quietly on the next "great" Maple/Oak board or software version"

Why would I want to wait around for "the next great thing" if they are not here contributing to discussions about existing products?

@gbulmer: You said: "I don't think "LeafLabs are the supplier, and LeafLabs should spend time supporting me".

I disagree 100%, That is exactly what I described with my story about Monty, the founders of successful projects most certainly DO support above and beyond what is expected. And that support breeds excitement, contributions, loyalty above and beyond normal or unsuccessful projects. I've seen it and I'm sure you have too.

Working on new products no matter how great they are is in my opinion no excuse for not taking care of the people that have gotten you to this point.

Posted 3 years ago #
gbulmer
Moderator

siy - we could just have two repositories, one for hardware, and the other for software? It might be easier for people to understand and navigate? Some folks will want both, but I imagine quite a lot of folks won't.

Your board sounds very good. It is much smaller than mine. It is almost 3" long, but my friend Pete strongly recommends reducing it so that it can fit nicely on micromouse maze robots as well as on breadboard. It is double sided. I need to rework it for STM32F4 power. I have been trying to fit a large LDO for the MCU and external loads (but only two on board), so I'll be very interested to see how you did that. I ditched LiPo charging because schools avoid LiPo batteries.

Yes I agree, the difference between 64pin STM32F4 variants shouldn't be a big obstacle, some stuff won't work :-)
The attraction of the STM32F4-Discovery is the cost, and the STLINK/V2 SWD. It is lovely to have a debugger.

Maybe we should start a thread to discuss hardware testing? Being breadboard compatible, it should be easier to make test rigs than Arduino/Maple.

Posted 3 years ago #
gbulmer
Moderator

corguy - I said I don't think of *my relationship* as being defined as "LeafLabs are the supplier, and LeafLabs should spend time supporting me". That is how it is for me. There is nothing to disagree with. It is just a fact.

let me give another example. I don't like gooseberries. To me, they taste horrible. I check occasionally that it is still true. There is nothing to disagree with. It might not apply to anyone else on Earth. It is just a fact that I base actions on.

I can understand and sympathise with you, that LeafLabs are not satisfying your needs. I feel it is useful to get feedback. After all, how can anyone improve without feedback?

(full disclosure: I am not a member of the LeafLabs staff)

Posted 3 years ago #
siy
Member

I like the idea of two repositories. But I think that initially it will be simpler to maintain one with separate subdirectories for hardware and software. Later we can move hardware in separate repository.

Send me a message at sergiy.yevtushenko at gmail dot com, I'll send you current schematic and board files in Eagle format.

As for Dicovery board, I think we should continue maintaining it in software and, probably, keep among hardware files (for consistency reasons) some kind of README file about using this board. And yes, I like to have on-board debugger, but it just does not fit on my board. I'm working on separate SWD dongle which will fit directly on the dedicated pin header at my board, but the main obstacle is firmware part. For obvious reasons I can't use ST-LINK/V2 firmware. I'm playing with with Versaloon now, but seems recently something was deeply broken in the Versaloon firmware part and neither vsprog nor OpenOCD are working properly with it. I've tried several variants (ST-LINK from STM32VL-Discovery, ST-LINK from STM8S-Discovery, my boards identical to ST-LINK/V1 and ST-LINK/V2) and several revisions of firmware, but neither combination works. I'm going to try my stripped down version of VersaloonMini (with only pins relevant for SWD routed). If anyone can comment on this, I'd appreciate any help.

About hardware testing. Yes, it definitely worth to start separate thread and try to prepare more or less general approach and procedure for compatibility testing. Probably it worth to prepare set of testcases organized into test suite, so after passing it anyone could be sure that his board (either, DIY or purchased somewhere) is compatible with the library configured for that board. I never saw anything similar done for open hardware, but, as you probably know, this is very common approach in software. Since we're dealing with both hardware and software, this approach makes sense from my point of view. May be I'm wrong or just missing something.

By the way, other member of community, x893 also designed board which should be compatible with F4 in more traditional arduino-like format which was available here: http://akb77.com/g/stm32/stm32-arduino/ (unfortunately link to the site does not work at the moment). Perhaps he will agree to include that board into community repository. Also, I've started work on board which will support 100-pin packages. Although work is at very early stage, I see no obvious issues and probably start prototyping it soon. I think that having a complete set (breadboard compatible for 64-pin packages, Arduino-like, breadboard compatible for 100-pin packages) of community supported boards should improve acceptance of the Maple as a whole (i.e. hardware and software parts) by more wide audience and increase its popularity. More members - more resources :)

Posted 3 years ago #
gbulmer
Moderator

siy - no need to send me files, you can put them in the repo later today :-)

I agree having a set of boards for the whole range of MCU's would be nice, but I have settled for 64pin. It is enough for a lot of projects.

I am very interested in your Versaloon experience. I was looking at it at the weekend, thinking of getting one, so your feedback is very, very useful.

I will be focusing on the STM32F4-DISCOVERY for at least a few more days, and probably several weeks. I haven't been watching very closely, but I think Farnell in the UK have sold more than a thousand a month for several months. Now RS are selling them too. Assuming the UK is only a small market, there are likely many more than 10,000 out there somewhere. So a nice API would be useful to some :-)

Posted 3 years ago #
bubulindo
Member

I would be interested in developping some of this stuff too. I'm more into the low level stuff but I'm learning on how to develop the libraries and such and would be willing to write something for the F4 as well (the RTC there, if I read it right, actually calculates the date and time values).

Mind you though that I'm about to embark on a new course that is not related to electronics, but since my hobby is small electronics I'd still be available to put effort in this.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, I think that actually defining that the F4 is the way to go in the future would be beneficial, most of the code would be simple to port I guess, but actually defining the physical platform would be a plus.

Also, to "beat" Arduino, the way is (as I think was said earlier) to provide what the Arduino can't. So right now, speed and pure processing power is what the Maple/STM32 can provide and we shouldn't really be worried about developping a library to use with a DS1307 or port expander, but more advanced stuff.

On the Native for example, I think that creating expansion hardware based on the memory bus would be a huge atractive. Imagine for example having one of the Ethernet chips mapped in memory, like the Wiz5x00 (or even more powerful), maybe some insane ammount of Flash? IO expanders. An LCD for example.
These aren't quite easy to design maintaining flexibility to stack boards, but would definitely make the platform more atractive.

On a related note, how easy is it to use the STM32DISCOVERY compared to the Maple? I mean, actually downloading and compiling software? For about 12£, is a nice piece of kit.

Posted 3 years ago #
anton
Member

And so. Who can fork libmaple, apply and clean ala's changes?

Posted 3 years ago #
siy
Member

gbulmer, great! I'll add design once repo will be available. And I agree that support for STM32F4-DISCOVERY is vital. It is a bandwagon driven by ST and we can jump into it.

bubulindo yes, idea of providing access to hardware which is out of reach for Arduino makes sense. Actually this is the one reason why I've started work on the 100-pin design. Beside things which you have mentioned, there is a possibility to add significant amount of RAM. Using PSRAM it is possible to provide, for example, 16Mb of RAM for quite reasonable price.

Posted 3 years ago #
siy
Member

anton, I think that forming core committers team will not take much time. Once repo will be created, I think it's worth to start dedicated thread for this.

Posted 3 years ago #
bubulindo
Member

16M RAM would be a dataloggers dream.

The problem I see when using external memory buses is to decode addresses for specific peripherals if you want to stack them. Some sort of jumper logic would have to be in place, or... some outsire programmable logic in order to map the correct peripheral in the right place.
But that would be an added cost in the board that wouldn't be used by everyone though.

Just noticed a bunch of dedicated hardware inside too. Simply amazing...

Posted 3 years ago #
Xavier
Moderator

Great thread !
I'm looking for a "maple mini"-like ST32F4 base board for my synth (www.preenfm.net).

I have 2 ST32F4Discovery and would love to try port my PreenFM synth to it.
That would double the polyphony and allow stereo :-)
My low level programming knowledge is poor, but i'd love to learn.
And in the meantime with my synth I can test the IRQ (audio buffer fill), Serial (midi), I2C (EEPROM 24LC512), LCD (LiquidCrystal/GPIO), 74LC165 though GPIO (Encoders and buttons)....and pwmWrite (audio sample) that i would like to replace by the DACs.

Go ahead, i'll follow ;-)

Posted 3 years ago #
siy
Member

bubulindo yes, there are a lot of things to think about. Perhaps a on-board decoder for upper address bits might help here. The outputs of the decoder which are not routed to on-board peripherals might be exposed to pin header (along with FSMC bus). Anyway, this is too early to discuss these. Initial plan is to create minimal board for 100-pin package with same (or similar) on-board features as listed above and all (or, at least, vast majority of) MCU pins brought out to headers. Such a board will be a good starting point for further extensions/modifications.

Posted 3 years ago #
siy
Member

Xavier my board is "maple mini"-like and supports F2/F4 MCUs. In fact this was initial goal for this design. Unfortunately 64-pin package does not fit into space identical to original Mini, so my board is about twice as wide comparing to Mini. Fortunately this provided enough space for other useful things :)

Posted 3 years ago #
Xavier
Moderator

Siy, this sounds very good....

Is this a regular socket size ?
I mean how can it be plugged into a PCB with a socket ?
Not sure i'm clear... See how i use the maple mini :
https://sites.google.com/site/preenfm/buildit

Can we use a DIP40 socket and cut it though the long size in 2 parts?

Posted 3 years ago #

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